Thursday, October 24, 2013

"Jason Leach is just 41 and in good health, but he’s already
made arrangements for his cremains. Part of it has to do with his family
history. “I’ve heard stories about my father trying to scatter his
grandfather’s ashes from a boat,” Leach says. “It went terribly wrong,
and they ended up sweeping him off the deck.” Things didn’t turn out
much better at his own grandfather’s memorial service. “There was a
strong breeze,” he remembers, grimacing. “And the ashes blew right into
my face.” When his time comes, Leach, who lives in Scarborough, on the
northeast coast of England, wants a more dignified ending. So he’s
having his ashes pressed into a vinyl record.

It’s not the most
conventional final resting place, but for Leach—a 20-year veteran of the
U.K. music business, as a producer, performer, and co-founder of such
independent labels as Subhead and House of Fix—it was the only logical
choice. And he’s not alone. In 2009, Leach founded And Vinyly (rhymes
with “And Finally”), an online service for people who, like him, want
their earthly remains to live on as an analog recording. At first, the
site was mostly ignored. “I didn’t expect much from it,” Leach says. “It
was just for fun.” But word slowly began to spread, and over the past
six months he’s been inundated with requests. He’s only processed four
records so far—including one with the ashes of a DJ whose parents wanted
their late son “to be played at his favorite clubs a few more
times”—but Leach has had hundreds of inquiries. “I’m sometimes up 24
hours a day just answering calls,” he says.

The process itself is
fairly simple: Ashes are delivered to a pressing plant in London and
sprinkled into the raw vinyl. But the cost can be exorbitant. The basic
And Vinyly package starts at £3,000 ($4,600) for 30 copies of a record,
each containing a bit of ash. It’s a fraction of the cost of a typical
burial, which the National Funeral Directors Association ballparks at
around $6,560. But then there are the add-ons. If you don’t want to
provide your own audio, a team of musicians from Leach’s labels will
write and record a song (or songs) about you for £500 per track. James
Hague of the National Portrait Gallery in London will create an original
painting for the record sleeve for around £3,500. You can also choose
which specific body part is put into the vinyl and have your record
distributed at “reputable vinyl stores worldwide,” Leach says, although
there’s no guarantee you’ll ever be bought. By the time a final bill is
tallied, an old-fashioned casket funeral might seem like a bargain.

But the price tag isn’t the biggest concern for the majority of
And Vinyly’s customers. According to Leach, it’s the content that gets
most of the hand-wringing. “People over-think it,” he says. “This tends
to become a very long process with people changing their minds
constantly.” Each record has just 24 minutes of available audio, with 12
minutes on each side. Not much to sum up a lifetime. And it gets even
more complicated when Leach explains the infinite possibilities. “Just
because it’s a record doesn’t mean it has to contain music,” Leach says.
“It might be nice to have your own voice on there. I’d like nothing
more than to listen to my great-great-grandfather say something on a
record.” He’s recorded people telling jokes and talking about their
family history, and even confessing their biggest regrets. One of his
favorite And Vinyly records, he says, ends with laughter on a closed
loop. “It just repeats over and over until you remove the needle.”

As
for what he plans on putting on his ash record—he’s very serious about
it, even including special instructions in his will—he’s as indecisive
as any of his clients. “I’m working constantly on my soundtrack,” he
says. “I make music, so that makes it difficult and complicated.” He
names a few songs that will likely make the final cut, with titles such
as Bust Rucket and Spaz ‘n Rave”. But lately, he says,
he’s been more interested in what he calls “aural photographs,” which
could include anything from a dog barking to the creaking of feet on
floorboards to a muffled conversation in the distance. “Whenever I’m
listening to field recordings, I’m always fascinated by the surrounding
sounds we usually tune out,” he says. “Those things in the background
that create an atmosphere, that’s what takes me back to a specific time
and place.”

He’s also considered the idea of not
recording anything at all and letting the only sound on his final LP be
the pop and crackle of his ashes vibrating against the needle. “I quite
like that idea,” he says. And then, after a thoughtful pause, he laughs
at the impossibleness of his task. “Don’t hold me to any of this,” he
says. “I’m sure I’ll change my mind tomorrow.”"